Storytelling . . .

Image above: “The Boyhood of Raleigh by Sir John Everett Millais [1829-1896], oil on canvas, 1870. 
A seafarer tells the young Sir Walter Raleigh and his brother the story of what happened out at sea.”

Most dictionaries define a story as a narrative account of a real or imagined event or events. Within the storytelling community, a story is more generally agreed to be a specific structure of narrative with a specific style and set of characters and which includes a sense of completeness.

Through this sharing of experience we use stories to pass on accumulated wisdom, beliefs, and values. Through stories we explain how things are, why they are, and our role and purpose. Stories are the building blocks of knowledge, the foundation of memory and learning.

Stories connect us with our humanness and link past, present, and future by teaching us to anticipate the possible consequences of our actions.

— Barry McWilliams

I ended the last post by invoking the need to gather together the energies, dynamics and expertise of a farseeing storyteller. After writing a poem about the holocaust, I felt I had enough inspirational fuel in me to give me a running start on writing a story.

I thought that maybe this time in my life I could finally write a novel.

From the time I was a young boy, I wanted to create one. I was then, and still am, a voracious reader. As I am a teacher, I read books for academic purposes. However, the kind of reading that I need to have is for pleasure. For fulfilling the soul. For purposes of wonder. To be lost in the middle of a grand epic tale. I am lost without a good book to read during the week. I will find time to burrow into one on a daily, usually nightly, basis.

I am mesmerized by storytellers, I am fascinated by their capacity to summon together a yarn or a tale and to share it with those around them. I always wanted to be able to participate in such an adventure.

For years I was plagued with not being able to complete a story idea that I had in mind to write. Every time I started to do so, I would get perhaps 30 to 50 pages written, and them screech into a grinding silence. I had no place to go with the plot, the characters, the setting and all of the other literary elements of what I was hoping to put together and depict on paper. It would fall apart. Stutter into entropy.

I could write poetry with no problem, comparatively speaking. I have written, somewhat successfully and with great passion, academic and scholarly writing. In the early 1980’s, I briefly was a part–time, newspaper reporter and photographer for the Lewiston Sun Journal, a daily newspaper whose reporters covered western Maine. I loved writing for this paper and wondered then why I could not write on a sustained basis a fictional story.

To avoid this feeling of looming failure, I started reading those storytellers who deeply influenced me in the first five months of 2014. As I read their respective work, I tried to keep an eye on the craft of their writing while I was in the midst of enjoying what they had written.

Each writer has a powerful sense of presence. Their copy (i.e., their use of prose, or wording), their sentence structure, their phrasing and their sense of cadence in the delivery of what they were saying, all were a joy to experience. While each author had a unique literary style and voice, I saw how they brought out excitement and avid interest on the part of a reader in what they were sharing with just such an audience.

I witnessed how the desire to keep turning their storybook pages was paramount to my being captivated by the stories they were telling me.

 I need to do the same thing, I thought. I kept that thought close to my heart. It became inscribed deeply into my mind and imagination.

 No matter what idea I end up telling, I want my readers turning page after page that I write in order for them to see what happens next in the unfolding of my story.

I started to glimpse the outlines of an idea, but it was too momentary; it was only a brief, fleeting thought that I could not yet firmly grasp and bring into sharp detail.

I thought of the people in my life who were the great storytellers, and how they so powerfully influenced me. In doing so, I realized what wealth had been given me in this regard. Over the next four or five blogs, I hope that I will be able to show the spell that they wove over me.

It was not until I did this review that I felt I had the cachet, the ability, even the self–permission, to write such an unfettered thought experiment that became the Penitent.

The storytellers I would like to introduce to you, while they fulfill the purpose of personal memoir, may also serve as an inspiration for others to see the story tellers who were and still are around them in their own lives.

Perhaps like drives like into great love and inspiration enough to fuel our own great endeavor in writing.

Works Cited:

“Storytelling.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 27 Jan. 2016. Web. 28 Jan. 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling>.

Millais’ Painting at:

Millais, Sir John E. The Boyhood of Raleigh. 1870. Tate, London. Web. 28 Jan. 2016. <http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-the-boyhood-of-raleigh-n01691>.

Definition of the Word Story:

McWilliams, Barry. “What Storytelling is. An Attempt at Defining the Art Form.” Eldrbarry’s Story Telling Page. N.p., 1997. Web. 27 Jan. 2016. <http://www.eldrbarry.net/>.

Related Links:

http://www.storynet.org/

http://www.storycenter.org/featured-custom-project

https://hbr.org/2003/06/storytelling-that-moves-people

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/the-psychological-comforts-of-storytelling/381964/

http://storytelling.stanford.edu/index.php/aboutus.html

If you enjoyed reading this post, please share it with others.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products or services that I have mentioned here. I am disclosing this information in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

© 28 January 2016 by A. Keith Carreiro

For information about my series, The Immortality Wars, please go to my home page: https://immortalitywars.com/